"The Citymob experience is all about discovery. We wanted to allow our customers to give the gift of design and now they can do that with our new e-gifting offering," says Citymob co-founder Luke Jedeikin. What sets the experience apart from its competitors are the unique characteristics that it offers.
Firstly, shoppers can choose the exact value (down to the rand) of the voucher they wish to give in one transaction. "Most sites have predefined values of gift cards and a cumbersome process whereby users must add multiple cards to their cart until they reach their desired gift 'value'. We obsess about customer experience and because of this have created an online purchasing process that is simple, efficient and easy to use."
The site notifies both the buyer and receiver once the gift has been sent and, more importantly, sends email notifications to both when the receiver opens the email, allowing peace of mind that the gift has in fact been received. This seems obvious but is regularly overlooked by industry players.
It has integrated its e-gifting with Facebook to identify whose birthday is coming up next, acting as a permanent reminder. As an added functionality, one is able to set the delivery date at a future date of one's choice, so that the gift voucher can be purchased prior to the birthday/anniversary/occasion day and be delivered on the desired date.
"There has been a big shift towards online shopping in South Africa and we saw an opportunity to enhance and grow our business by offering something new and unique. We include a variety of creative card designs for shoppers to choose from to personalise the experience further and have collaborated with many of the artists whom we feature on the site to design exclusive cards within our gifting range."
In South Africa, not many online stores offer a user-friendly, intuitive gifting portal. Because of its consistent and creative innovations, the site has been ranked in the top five SA e-commerce companies by web traffic, according to online rating site Alexa.com, moving ahead of powerhouses such as Kulula.com, Yuppiechef, Computicket and Woolworths.co.za.
The success of retail is no longer based on physical stores, and judging by the amount of online retailers present on the web, this is set to grow rapidly, with Citymob being at the forefront of this innovation.
"Gifting should be about spoiling people with something different, giving something out of the ordinary - both the giving and receiving of those same old, repetitive gifts should be a thing of the past," concludes Jedeikin.
For more information, go to www.citymob.co.za.
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